The best thing I've learned in the past few months is that you can systematically
generate ideas. Inspiration is great, muses are beauteous, but you don't have to wait
for them. Work with them, not for them.
Anyway.
Recently, i.e. this weekend, I've been making art, of my own volition. It's nice when
things like that happen. I think I'm learning how to make it happen, which is good
because it stops me being whiny. Usually I hate it when people refer to talking about
their sadness as whiny, but months of just churning out this horribly depressive text
has started to get to me. Anyway, this isn't what this entry is about. This entry is
about plugging my warez. I've taken to posting my more experimental works on
DeviantArt. Here they are:

144.17º

This is my part of the recent collaborative digital text project we did at uni. I
liked what I made so much that I tore it out and made it a piece of its own. here is the piece itself
(each refresh is different). The collaborative piece is here. Here is a little bit of
documentation:

I've fed all the MSN chatlogs I've got record of
since Oct 2005 (I knew keeping all those logs would come in useful at some point)
into a bit of code. The code calculates how long the text would span if I printed it
all in one line in 12pt font (currently 3717km). For me, this functions as a
demonstration of the distance created by communication on the internet (the more
words I/they type, the longer and further away 'The Word' (bear with me on this)
is).
This is accompanied with a scattering of excerpts from these chatlogs. The
pseudorandom number generator is seeded (kinda) with a number that's quite personal
to me. As the chatlogs have not been edited, any number of personal or intimate
details could show themselves. This represents, to me, the kind of exposure the
internet encourages and the anonymity (there is no way of telling who typed these
excerpts) it begrudgingly allows. This anonymity, combined with the lack of context
which removes any kind of dialogue, feels to me very isolating too. While all these
personal experiences are being thrown up at you, there is no way to interact or even
respond to them.
I'm still working on explaining this, you might have guessed.

30 Self-Portraits

A rather extensive response to a prompt which basically consisted of "Suicide,
Self-harm, and Depression". I'd tell you more about it but the DA page already has
quite a bit of explanatory text on it, so here's that.

Twilight

Yes, folks, I finally caved and wrote some Twilight fanfiction. Actually no, but
YOU'RE ON THE RIGHT LINES. It's a mutilation of a bunch of text, in which I try and
dubiously fail at expressing the concept of unrealised dreams. It's worth it just for
the weird factor really, I'd say. Here. It. Is. (Again,
lots more explanatory text in the ARTISTE'S COMMENTS). But, here's an exclusive bit
of info for you kupikians: why is it called Twilight? Well, partially, because that's
the text, but I kept it as Twilight because Twilight is a liminal, transformative,
transitional, state. If all you've got to go on is the light, then Twilight could go
either way, to light or to darkness. Cheeeeeeze.
I'mma show you a couple more.

Gemini

This piece is quite important to me. It's a rather massive visual text piece,
resembling the mash of things swimming around in my head regarding my gender. It may
not have escaped some of yours noticings that I have particular problems with being
male, and even with male itself in some ways. Ah, if only prom could see me now....
Anyway, here we go.

Sic(k)

Image based, visual poetry I guess you'd call it. It's about horrible things people
do to other people, and how the perpetrators deal with that. It's also about rape. It's here.

The Last Away Message

Actually a really old piece. A textual composition of the diaries of the friends of
someone who committed suicide, and the poetry of the deceased. His name was Alex,
it's been around three years eight months now. I never knew him, not while he was
alive.

Cliche

Sonic project I did for one of the submodules on my writing course. It's about
cliché. It was made by looping together a speech recognition engine and a speech
synthesiser and plugging me speaking some text in. Listen
That's some of my major projects of the last month. I need to work out what to do
with my live project too... since that was fairly major, and I don't want it to
disappear without a trace. Anyway, so yeah, if you were wondering what I've been up
to, this should hopefully satisfy you? I hope so!
PAEC OUT

Last edited: 9 April 2009

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